This past weekend a group of friends and I went with a group from the Tahoe Truckee Fly Fishers on an outing to the East Fork of the Carson River near Markleeville, south of South Lake Tahoe. We met at what is known as Hangmanand#8217;s Bridge off Highway 89 about a mile and a half past the town of Markleeville.

This is popular wild trout, special-regulation water from the bridge downstream. It is open all year and is subject to the use of only artificial lures with barbless hooks. Above the bridge the regulations allow bait, and it is planted pretty heavily.

Dry fly, nymph fishing and streamer fishing all can be very good on this river. Because this river is so popular, the fish can get pretty picky. It has been my experience that when the water is higher, the fishing seems to be easier.

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The flow during this trip was around 140 cubic feet per second. As a result, the fish have a pretty good amount of time to check out your flies. We all got many refusals from fish using hopper dropper set-ups. The fish would come to the hopper, but not take them. My only fish was caught on the dropper, a soft hackle pattern. All of us had similar success, or should I say, lack of success.

It was a pretty frustrating day seeing fish coming up under the fly and not taking them, but it is always a pretty location and one I enjoy visiting. I do not get there very often, preferring to fish our own local waters.

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We also had thunderstorms in the area and a pretty steady rain in the afternoon. This cooled things down and got us pretty soaked. It made us come off the water a little earlier than we anticipated.

After packing our gear, we drove into Markleeville. There we had a bit of dinner at the Cutthroat Saloon. This place had changed quite of bit since the last time that I had stopped many years ago. It seemed a little more upscale than I remembered.

On the way out of town we stopped at the Indian Creek Reservoir campground to visit with the other group from the club, who was staying overnight to fish the reservoir the next day. We compared notes and had a good visit before taking the long ride back to Truckee. All agreed that the lack of fish had not diminished the experience.

and#8212; Bruce Ajari is a Truckee resident and regular fishing columnist for the Sierra Sun and other area newspapers.